Talk:Freedom of information in the United States

Stubs
I've merged a few redundant stubs into this one: Open meetings law, open records law, government in the sunshine. If someone was inspired to merge again, combining this article with Freedom of Information Act (disambiguation), that'd be great - I didn't, because my understanding of sunshine law is that it's a little broader than just government records, but that may not be a useful distinction, and the FOIA (disambig) page has a great international scope that is lacking from this article. Cdc 01:44, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * This article overwhelmingly deals with the USA; I've mentioned sunshine laws in the main FOI article, so what I'm going to do is move this to Freedom of information in the United States, redirect sunshine law to Freedom of information legislation, and then we have scope to write about the various national FOI/openness laws in the US as well as the individual states. Sunshine laws aren't FOI per se, but they're "spiritually" very similar, and it's probably worth discussing them alongside related legislation. Shimgray | talk | 14:33, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Freedom of Information / open records
I'm trying to track down the origin of the statement: "The first open records law was passed in Wisconsin shortly after it became a state in 1848." Mberigan 19:58, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Creating more pages on Wikipedia to cover open records
It might be time to go back to a collection of articles on this instead of putting all of it in one place. Each of the 50 states has its own unique open records law with attendant controversies, and these are all different from the federal FOIA.

There are also emerging controversies that (I think) deserve their own page.

I'll check back in a bit to see if anyone else has a different opinion but for right now I'd propose writing a separate article called "Open Records" that primarily deals with the state-level laws and state-level controversies, and leaving this article to primarily cover the federal law and its controversies.Leslie Graves 14:12, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * A few of the articles on individual state laws do make it clear how they differ from federal law. Most are a paragraph long and basically say the same thing.  These are redundant and can be redirected to this article.--RadioFan (talk) 01:30, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Merge proposal
I am proposing that Barbara Schwarz be merged into this article. It is generally agreed that her notability stems exclusively from her extreme filings of FOIA requests. There are three good secondary sources in her bio (2 Salt Lake Trib, 1 Oregonian) that can support a short summary here as an example of abuses of FOIA. - Crockspot 03:10, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose if the same amount of information that is currently in the Barbara Schwarz article were part of this one, we'd be discussing a spin off per WP:SS. Anynobody 03:27, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It would not be the same amount. It would be a summary, using only the secondary sources I mentioned. - Crockspot 04:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Moving this discussion to Talk:Freedom of Information Act (United States) - Crockspot 04:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Redundant article to Freedom of Information Act (United States)?
Not to change the topic but has anyone else noticed Freedom of Information Act (United States)? I'm wondering if before the Barbara Schwarz question is addressed if we should merge these two articles first? Anynobody 03:37, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Crap. I didn't realize there were two. The other is where the Schwarz article should be merged. - Crockspot 04:46, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

state specific articles
There have been a number of articles created recently that are specific to states. There is little information in there beyond the legislation numbering, nothing that would explain how that state's freedom of information laws are any different from any other. Any objections to merging these to this article? California seems to be the one exception that has more more material in it and may warrant a dedicated article.--RadioFan (talk) 17:43, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Uncited information
I've again pulled down a large chunk of uncited material from this article. As with any WP article, it needs to be cited if it's going to be included.

I don't normally mind waiting to let someone add sources, but after more than a decade of FOI experience, I know that this information includes several inaccuracies. Don't repost without citations. — Bdb484 (talk) 22:19, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It sounds like you'd be the perfect editor to remove the inaccuracies and find reliable sources for the remaining statements. In lieu of that, remove the inaccuracies and tag the rest, and I'll search for sources. Deal? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:01, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I may get around to that. In the meantime, feel free to source anything you'd like to restore on your own. — Bdb484 (talk) 03:03, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I've got a better plan. I'll restore the material, with cn tags, and you give the community some time to add the citations. There is WP:NORUSH to do so. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:06, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Better still: Don't start an edit war trying to restore bad information. The deadline is WP:NOW. — Bdb484 (talk) 06:31, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm calling your bluff. Please identify the so-called "false," "bad" information, or I will consider your challenge of this material to have been made in bad faith. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:51, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * And I yours. If you want to justify an edit war by violating WP:AGF, I'm not sure that defense will be well received.
 * There's no sense giving a line-by-line accounting of the problems. Beyond the clearly false material, there is other material that is misleading, and then there is additional material that is the result of original research. The pervasiveness of these problems in individual sentences casts doubt on the verifiability of the entire section, hence its removal. This was noted in the original edit summary.
 * If you want the material restored, the WP:BURDEN is on you to cite it. Alternatively, you could see whether there's consensus for a repeal of WP:V. — Bdb484 (talk) 07:57, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Throw me a bone. One example of a false statement, please. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:33, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The Freedom of Information Act does not fall under the Ohio Open Meetings Law. — Bdb484 (talk) 03:34, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems that you are mistaken, see here, here, though the sentence could be tweaked for clarity. I agree that this was a rather shoddily written section but it was certainly better than nothing. In particular I don't see anything controversial or challengeable about the first two sentences. How about we restore those and jettison the rest? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:29, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Never mind, found sources. Hopefully we never cross paths again. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 07:55, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm definitely not mistaken. I think you -- as well as the original author -- have failed to recognize the distinction between the Freedom of Information Act and the concept of freedom of information more broadly. In Ohio, FOIA has nearly no relevance to your ability to access records from state and local governments, though you could say the the Public Records Act is its state-level analogue. The Open Meetings Act advances the cause of freedom of information, but it is not similar in any meaningful way to FOIA. If we were looking for a federal equivalent, that would probably be the Government in the Sunshine Act. — Bdb484 (talk) 20:51, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Whatever floats your boat. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:40, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Copyvio/plagiarism/close paraphrasing in "State legislation" section
I recently edited the "State legislation" section read, minus tags and refs:

All fifty states also have public records laws that allow members of the public to obtain documents and other public records from state and local governments.

The provisions of these state laws vary considerably. States with traditionally strong access laws include Vermont, which provides virtually unfettered access on many levels; Florida, which was one of the first states to enact a sunshine law; and Ohio, whose courts have issued several access-friendly rulings. Other jurisdictions, such as Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia, were known for being relatively non-transparent but have recently made significant changes to their open government laws to foster greater public access to information.

The section was blanked by with the comment: "WP:COPYVIO; all material was plagiarized from the provided sources."

I believe a more appropriate guideline to cite would have been WP:PARAPHRASE, as the language wasn't copied verbatim. But no matter, the message is the same. In line with WP:PARAPHRASE, I would appreciate Bdb484's assistance by identifying his or her specific concerns. Put another way, how far must we further deviate from the sources' language in order to alleviate his or her concerns of copyright violation? Or does he or she feel that in-text attribution would be better in this situation? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:41, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Whichever standard you prefer, you screwed up. WP:PARAPHRASE isn't a defense of close paraphrasing; it's an admonishment against it, saying that you should "summarize source material in [your] own words." You lifted sentences from the source material without making meaningful changes to them. That's a pretty classic case of plagiarizing, though I'm sure that you didn't mean to, as that's what everyone says when they are found doing the same thing.
 * In the first instance, you changed "50" to "fifty," "which" to "that" and "government bodies" to governments." In the second, you WP:COPYPASTED a complete sentence without doing anything to change it.
 * What you did is just as much a copyright violation as rearranging the tracks on The Black Album and calling it your own work, or cutting a few scenes out of Bio-Dome and then calling yourself the director. In the case of the third sentence, it would actually be more like just crossing out the author's name on a book cover and scrawling in your own.
 * I think the best way forward would be to adhere to WP copyright policies. "Superficial change of copyright-protected text is not enough. Wikipedia articles must be written in the author's own words." — Bdb484 (talk) 05:17, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I have no desire to get into a discussion about whether this was or was not a copyright violation, I just want to know what will satisfy you. If I re-write the first two sentences will that be sufficient? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:23, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I can understand your desire to avoid that conversation, but if you don't understand how to avoid copyright violations, it may be hard for you to write this in a way that is satisfactory. — Bdb484 (talk) 23:31, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Please answer the question. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:47, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It depends on whether your rewrite inadvertently plagiarizes the sources again. I'd say you should go for it and we'll see what happens. — Bdb484 (talk) 03:43, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I want to understand the scope of your concerns. I.e., if I re-write the two sentences you referenced above, will you then complain about other sentences? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 04:08, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * If by "complain about other sentences" you mean using edit summaries when I make edits, then yes. And if by "complain" you just mean answering your questions about my edits, then yes, I'll probably do that, too. — Bdb484 (talk) 05:11, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * No, I mean will you delete the section based on COPYVIO concerns about sentences we haven't discussed? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:25, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I intend to delete all copyright violations I find. At the moment, I don't know of any others in the current version of the page. — Bdb484 (talk) 05:32, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Freedom of information in the United States. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20070415102640/http://www.ire.org:80/foi/bga/ to http://www.ire.org/foi/bga/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 22:50, 27 February 2016 (UTC)